Chapter

45

Elizabeth Deveraux was sitting upright in the bed when I woke. She was on my left, in the center of her space, facing me, back straight, legs crossed, like yoga. She was naked and unselfconscious. She was very beautiful. Just spectacularly good looking. One of the best looking women I had ever seen, and certainly the best looking I had ever seen naked, and definitely the best looking I had ever slept with.

But by that point she was mentally preoccupied. Seven o’clock in the morning. The start of the work day. No third time lucky for me. Not right then. She said, “They must have had something else in common. Those three women, I mean.”

I said nothing.

“Beauty is too nebulous,” she said. “It’s too subjective. It’s just an opinion.”

I said nothing.

She said, “What?”

“It’s not just an opinion,” I said. “Not with those three.”

“Then we’re looking for two factors. Two things that interacted. They were beautiful and they were also something else.”

“Maybe they were pregnant,” I said.

*   *   *

We examined the proposition. They were girlfriend material. It was a base town. These things happen. Mostly by accident, but sometimes on purpose. Sometimes women think that moving from one base town to another with a baby is better than living alone in the base town where they were born. A mistake, probably, but not for all of them. My own mother had been OK with it, for instance.

I said, “Shawna Lindsay was desperate to get out, according to her kid brother.”

Deveraux said, “But I can’t see why Janice May Chapman would have been. She wasn’t born here. She chose this place. And she wouldn’t have needed a guy to get her out anyway. She could have just sold up and driven away in her Honda.”

“Accident, then,” I said. “With her, anyway. One other thing we didn’t see in her house was birth control. Nothing in the medicine cabinet.”

No response.

I asked, “Where do you keep yours?”

“Bathroom shelf,” she said. “There are no medicine cabinets here.”

“Did Rosemary McClatchy want to get out of town?”

“I don’t know. Probably. Why wouldn’t she?”

“Did the doctor test for pregnancy?”

“No,” Deveraux said. “I’m sure they would have in a big city. But not here. Merriam signed the certificate and gave us the cause of death, that’s all. The fifty-cent opinion.”

I said, “Chapman didn’t look pregnant.”

“Some women don’t, for months.”

“Would Rosemary McClatchy have told her mother?”

“I can’t ask her,” Deveraux said. “Absolutely not. No way. I can’t put that possibility into Emmeline’s mind. Because suppose Rosemary wasn’t pregnant? It would taint her memory.”

“There was something Shawna Lindsay’s brother wasn’t telling me. I’m sure of it. Maybe something big. You should talk to him. His name is Bruce. He wants to join the army, by the way.”

“Not the Marines?”

“Apparently not.”

“Why? Did you trash the Marines to him?”

“I was very fair.”

“Would he talk to me? He seems very hostile.”

“He’s OK,” I said. “Ugly, but OK. He seems drawn toward the military. He seems to understand command structure. You’re a Marine and a sheriff. Approach it right and he might stand up and salute.”

“OK,” she said. “Maybe I’ll try it. Maybe I’ll go see him today.”

“All three of them could have been accidental,” I said. “The big decisions might have come afterward. About what to do, I mean. If they all three liked the status quo they might have chosen a different route. Or they might have been persuaded.”

“Abortion?”

“Why not?”

“Where would they get an abortion in Mississippi? You’d have to drive north for hours.”

“Which is maybe why Janice Chapman got dressed before four in the morning. An early start. Maybe she had a long trip ahead of her. Maybe her boyfriend was driving her somewhere. For an afternoon appointment, perhaps. Then an overnight stay. Maybe she was thinking ahead, to the reception counter. The waiting room. So she put on something appropriate. Stylish, but reasonably demure. And maybe she packed a bag. That’s something else we didn’t see in her house. Suitcases.”

“We’ll never know for sure,” Deveraux said. “Unless we find the boyfriends.”

“Or the boyfriend, singular,” I said. “It might have been the same guy.”

“With all three of them?”

“It’s possible.”

“But it makes no sense. Why would he set up an appointment at an abortion clinic for them and then murder them before they got a mile down the road? Why not just go through with the appointment?”

“Maybe he’s the kind of guy who can’t afford either a pregnant girlfriend or an association with an abortion clinic.”

“He’s a soldier. Not a preacher. Or a politician.”

I said nothing.

Deveraux said, “Maybe he wants to be a preacher or a politician later.”

I said nothing.

“Or maybe he’s got preachers or politicians in the family. Maybe he has to avoid embarrassing them.”

There was a creak from a floorboard outside in the hall, and then a soft knock on my door. I recognized the sound immediately. The same as the morning before. The old guy. I pictured his slow shuffling tread, the slow tentative movement of his arm, the muted low-energy impact of his papery knuckles on the wood.

Deveraux whispered, “Oh, shit.”

Now we were like teenagers. Now we were rushing and fumbling. Deveraux rolled off the bed and grabbed an armful of clothing, which happened to include my pants, so I had to wrestle them back from her, which spilled the other garments all over the place. She tried to collect them and I tried to get my pants on. I got tangled up and fell back on the bed and she made it to the bathroom but left a breadcrumb trail of socks and underwear behind her. I got my pants more or less straight and the old guy knocked again. I limped across the floor and kicked clothes toward the bathroom as I went. Deveraux darted out and collected them up. Then she ducked back in again and I opened the door.

The old guy said, “Your fiancée is on the phone for you.”

Loud and clear.